DISCRETION

How utterly galling to be the second most adept at sensing, at directing, those dark energies, in all the known galaxy … and have to rein them in most of the time. Lord Maul stood by the bar at Allure, watching his half-drunk coworkers squabble over a card game in which he had wisely declined to participate.

Despite his unusually short stature for one of his species, Criss the Falleen behaved as if he owned not only the table, but the entire bar. He had a way of preening without laying a hand on his hair or his clothing. The Preening Falleen, Maul thought as the reptilian leaned carelessly back in his chair, rolling both shoulders as if he were looking for an excuse to flex his muscles.

Actually, all Falleen were preeners, and Maul detested it.

"This ishn't three hundred ditaries," Fleet snapped, or tried to snap, fingering through the pile of credits he had just won.

"Itsh not supposed to be three hundred ditaries!" This from Rictus the Bith, wiping foam from his lips after a sip of beer. "We didn't even start out with that in the pot!"

"Yes, we did!"

"No, we didn't!"

The Falleen reached for the back of the Human's head and pushed him forward, banging his forehead into the table. Around them, tables of startled tourists in their skimpy swimming suits fluttered and scooted their chairs away from the disturbance. Behind Maul, the barkeep shouted, "What's going on over there?" and rang a large bell on a bracket attached to the wall.

Fleet narrowed his beady eyes and grabbed the Falleen by the pony tail. He pushed his nose into his beer.

Criss came up spluttering, a ring of foam comically encircling his nose. He looked over at the Bith and said, "We're going to get you!"

Somnb, the other Bith, emerged from the men's fresher just in time to help Chriss and Rictus grab the shouting Fleet by the arms and drag him in the direction of the outdoor pool.

"Cathal! Help us!"

Fourteen-year-old Maul skipped school that day, slipping away from the elite boarding school his master had him enrolled in to flit around the edges of a garden party at the Palace, attended by his master in his guise as Ambassador, the King, the Governor, a number of other dignitaries … and a few Jedi from Theed's own small Jedi Temple.

He only wanted to see real Jedi—to catch his first glimpse of one up close.

How his master intended to avoid detection, young Maul did not know, but why would anyone notice him? He wouldn't even be at the party, technically.

The bar patrons all laughed as the small Human struggled and grew red in the face. He planted his heels only to be dragged along. At the pool's edge, the Falleen took his shoulders, one Bith each took his feet, and they swung him three times side to side.

With mock screams, the ball game going on in the pool broke up, several lovely ladies scattering across the water in all directions like schrapnel dispersed by a grenade.

Fleet landed in the water with an almighty splash. Spray showered the ball players, who all laughed and screamed, clapping.

Maul felt a tingle in the dark side. When Fleet came up for air, he was angry.

It was to Maul's advantage that Fleet end the evening uninjured. "Cathal" could let himself into the hangar, he supposed, but the place was said to have an antitheft system that was state-of-the-art. It must be—Maul had detected no sign of it in almost ten days of work. Either that, or Buyo Wabo relied on rumor to protect the ships that carried his most precious cargo. The obvious reason Fleet alone could pilfer on the job was that he was in charge of this rumored security system.

A genteel party greeted his sight, the Jedi in their distinctive cloaks at one end of it and his master in the expected Naboo frock coat at the other. Young Maul settled himself in a stand of trees and low hedgebrush on the other side of the Palace's electrified wrought iron picket fence, watching as the two Jedi sipped their colored drinks, wandering amongst the bright flowers that spangled the garden in plantings here and there, the King at its center dressed like a brilliant jyrafowl.

He tried to see if he could sense anything from them at all. These Jedi couldn't feel anything like his master in the Force, whose dark smolder touched Maul even at this distance. He did feel some muted tranquil energy, a sort of luminous gentleness, as the two Jedi crossed his line of sight and his master floated gracefully away from them, keeping the distance between himself and the Jedi ever even, disappearing inside the palace as the Jedi crossed the shallowest stretch of the oblong garden.

The two Jedi kept glancing outside the wrought iron fence as they passed … toward the thicket where Maul was hidden. Looking up at the palace, he saw his master at a window, looking right in his direction. He felt his master's sense in the Force change then. Master could not see him, but he had recognized Maul was there, and struggled to mute his anger.

Apprentice, you will regret this. Oh, yes, you will.

The good thing about a bar fight: everyone in the bar was looking at the fight. Everyone stared as Fleet the Human roared up out of the pool, tripping in his haste up the stairs. He grabbed one of the retreating Bith by the collar and tossed him flailing over the edge into the pool, not, apparently, stopping to consider whether Bith could swim.

This one couldn't, and thrashed silently with most of his head under the water until the ladies of the ball game realized he was drowning and rushed to fish him out.

The other Bith clasped his hands to the sides of his head at the uptick of shouts, shrieks, and hubbub in the bar and ran for the sand and the nightly light show at the water's edge. That left only the Falleen, striding back to his table. Fleet the Human tackled him from behind, and, when he turned around, punched him in the jaw.

A collective cry went up from the females in the bar. Chairs, tables, and bodies scooted back out of the way as Criss returned a punch and then grabbed Fleet and flipped him over his shoulder. Shouts rang out as he came down squarely in the middle of a table of drinks and then slipped off of it, turning it over as he slid to the floor. He hopped up and promptly slid down again on a floor slick with beer. His head nearly hit a hastily abandoned chair behind him, which Maul deftly moved away with the Force. Behind him, he heard the barkeep on a communicator, summoning the local constabulary.

Criss strode over him, stopped, and hauled him up by his shirt. A gaggle of onlookers encircled them now, Human, Falleen, Rodian, and Bith, calling the fight with gasps and shouts. Maul hoisted himself to sit on the bar to observe. His master's instructions forbade the use of lightsabers or any manner of drawing attention to himself … as per usual.

Maul gritted his teeth, but any involvement of his own in the fight must remain unseen.

Criss pulled back for another punch and Maul looked for someone convenient—a Human male sliding past on his way to the fresher—and pushed gently in the Force without a hand gesture, sending his sandaled foot out from under him on the slick floor. He twisted sideways and fell, taking Criss and Fleet down with him.

The much heavier and well-muscled Falleen bounded back up again. His movements told Maul what he was about to do.

He bent over Fleet and drew one arm back, ready for the sort of punches to the face that would send blood flying all the way to Maul's boots.

Can't have that. Maul sent a tendril of the Force to yank the Falleen's feet out from under him, and he collapsed in an awkward heap on top of Fleet. Fleet scrambled out from under him, crawled to his hands and knees, and got up, beer soaking his stained work shirt. Criss grabbed him by the ankle, he went down again, and they started throwing punches at each other.

Two green-uniformed constables scurried in and headed to what was obviously the center of everyone's attention. The Rodian constable grabbed the Falleen, the Falleen constable grabbed the Human, and they dragged the beer-soaked fighters apart. Then the Falleen constable also slid on the slick floor, colliding with a Gotal who turned and punched him in the face, thus igniting a melee that soon involved almost every patron in the bar.

Yells, shrieks, screams filled the air, along with flying fists, flying tumblers of drinks, spilled plates of food, overturned tables, broken chairs. The din drowned out the music. A quick push in the Force here, a deft turn there, and by the time ten more constables had been called and half the bar patrons led away in binders, Lord Maul had kept harm enough away from Fleet the Human that he should still have easy access to the hangar tomorrow night. The Gotal shoved him into the far wall, where he lay sprawled half against the wall and half on the floor, out cold, waiting for medics to get to him.

At least he wouldn't be arrested before tomorrow. Maul hopped down from the bar—just as a clank from the far wall whipped his head around.

A shelf high above the Human's head had fallen, letting go a large pottery vase painted in reds, yellows, and blues—which had just broken over Fleet's head.

A medic strode over and bent over him. "This one's not breathing!"

Pain is fuel. Feed off of it. Use it. Let it push you. Master said this every time he found it necessary to punish young Maul.

You will not reveal yourself to the Jedi or anyone else until I give you leave. If I ever again witness the disobedience I saw this afternoon, apprentice, you may not survive.

And then the plasma lightning had hit him.